Chapter 5
022.M42
Isfarena, Eliator subsector, Syntyche sector
"Mother says it's here. She never lies to us." Klauss, voice confident, led the way in the catacombs.
He held the small torch that illuminated the tall sinister corridors. Rais, without a light of his own, followed hurriedly not to be left in pitch black. The smell of moisture and steady drip of water indicated they were far underground, perhaps below the bedrock of the great river. How close or far they were from the Grand Cathedral of Saint Gilles was lost to the young boys, but the all-encompassing darkness clarified Rais's fear of enclosures.
Rais's breathing was laboured. A complaint formed on his tongue but stilled on his lips. Klauss would hit him again if he whined. Not only that, he would tell the Mother, and Rais hated that more than following his brother in the tunnels below the hive. "How do you know it's here? I thought the saint's bones were in the reliquary."
"Those are fake. Copies made for the real ones to be left alone. Want to know how I learned this?" Rais, curiosity piqued, voiced an affirmative. "Mother told me the truth. The genuine truth the cardinals keep silent about, or don't even know. Remember those stories father told, how Saint Gilles defeated witches of Chaos and closed the Damnation Vortex?"
Of course Rais knew. Every child on Isfarena knew the tale after their first communion vows. "I remember. I'm not stupid."
Klauss grinned over his shoulder, a too-thin face framed by a shock of black hair. "Gilles died after he sealed Chaos. He didn't live for another century and become a priest like we were taught. Caught in the powers of Chaos, the closing gateway ate away at him until only his holy bones remained. Most think his bones were collected and housed in the silver casket in the reliquary. But the truth is-"
Caught up in the immersive tale, Klauss misjudged his step. The story floor, slick with moss and rivulets of water, slanted unexpectedly and the boy fell. Skidding away into the eerie shadows, Klauss lost his grip on the electric torch, crying out as he tumbled. Rais screamed after his brother, snatching the fallen torch up and casting the weak light ahead frantically. He did not want to be left alone down in the tunnels, never alone. Calling out again, the younger brother made his way down the treacherous incline, one shaking hand clinging to the wet stone wall. When the yellow pool of light fell on Klauss' prone form, Rais started to cry. Grabbing his elder brother by the shoulder Rais jostled him. A hand came up to swat the boy aside.
"Get off me," his brother grumbled. "I'm not dead. Mother said we would be fine and look, I am." Patting himself down to prove his point, Klauss stood. A wince betrayed the pain of bloodied knees and scrapped palms. Klauss took back the torch.
"Watch your step," Rais mumbled, chastised and embarrassed.
"If you stop crying, I'll tell you the rest of the story." Limping slightly, Klauss followed the curve of the high passage. The air felt thicker the further they walked, oppressive to breathe and tinged with a smell neither could place. Rais pursued his brother and the light, pushing greasy locks of dark hair from his pale face.
"Okay," Rais wiped his nose on the dirty cuff of his tunic. "Why are Saint Gilles bones not the real ones in the casket?"
"Because the priests realised if they removed the bones the gateway would open again."
Shocked by the revelation, Rais stopped. Klauss, sensing his younger brother's halt, turned to stare at him. "Hey, why are you stopping?"
"We shouldn't remove the bones, Klauss. We need to leave them." The torchlight's beam flashed in Rais's face. Without seeing Klauss, Rais knew his brother sneered at the thought of abandoning their mission.
"Why is that? Why should we believe the lies of the Ecclesiarchy? Do you remember what they did to mother when she went to be healed? Do you even remember how long she screamed? I'm sick and tired of listening to lies." Klauss was twelve years old and knew the church's doctrine to witches and heretics. His mother hadn't been either. The priest condemned her as one. Rais, only nine, never wanted to revisit those memories.
"But if what Mother says is true and the gateway opens again, we'll be killing people. Think of what could… come out." Thin hands seized Klauss' arm. "Imagine what might catch and drag us into the abyss." His active imagination filled with visions of fire and brimstone the cardinals warned of from their great pulpits of gold.
"You idiot, we're not removing all the bones! She only wants one, not the stupid skeleton. Think things through for once." Klauss thumped Rais on the head. "Now you wonder why you're never told anything and I am. We owe it to Mother after she saved us and father. Do you want to go back to eating sewage rats and pawing through open graves?"
"N-no, not really." Remembering nights curled up in fear and not knowing what morning could bring, Rais knew his life was better, thanks to the Mother's benefaction. What would Rais not do in her name to serve?
"She promised us more. Much more than anyone on Isfarena can give us. I trust her words and do this for her. If you're grateful you'll help, too."
Cowed by Klauss hard words, Rais dropped his head and slunk after his brother. Very soon the two arrived at the doorway the Mother had detailed earlier. Cast in bronze and rusted by age, the unadorned surface was inscribed with a passage in High Gothic worn down by time. The lock, a plain keyhole found by the torch's light, waited to be turned. Rais withdrew the baroque key the Mother had given him earlier from the pouch around his neck. Fitting it into the opening, the boy turned the key counter clockwise and felt the mortise lock give way.
Mechanical tumblers activated, hidden doors seals unlatched and cogs turned. The doors swung inwards, expelling a gust of cold and foul air that caused the brothers to cough. When the fetid wind and grime settled, Klauss and Rais peered inside the sepulchre to the finding resting place of Saint Gilles. Down steps covered in undisturbed dust, the sunken chamber yawned before the children's tiny forms. They stepped inside, the feeble light of the torch unable to pierce the shadows as in the hallway.
"Klauss," Rais whispered as they moved into the darkness, leaving the open doorway behind. "If these bones are so important, why can't Mother come and get them herself?"
He felt the need to whisper. Rais worried his presence and Klauss's would awaken whatever slumbered here, the story of the Damnation Vortex at the forefront of his mind. A child's imagination was a dangerous thing. Caught by entities in the Warp, it was the greatest toy a daemon hoped for. Something in the air felt that and formed from power given, a sluggish awareness rudely woken by two boys following orders. Something came to watch them from the ceiling, hidden behind thick cobwebs and crumbling masonry.
"Because of the seals." With the light's weak beam Klauss pointed at their feet. An enormous double-headed aquila, blood-red garnet against a sea of black marble, was embossed on the floor. In minute detail golden script written in the same High Gothic patterned the marble, moving in whorls and triagrams. "The seals stop her from entering and touching the bones, but they don't stop us. It's because she said we're special. We're chosen."
They crossed the enclosed plaza with the light showing the way. On the other side, lying on a platform fashioned from the same black marble, a stone sarcophagus lay. Inside laid the remains of a holy being, a selfless man who gave his life for others to live. Klauss and Rais felt none of the holiness in the remains of a saint. Features chiselled to resemble the dead saint on the top of the grave; both children looked at Gilles' likeness for long moments before nodding to each other. Klauss propped the torchlight on the floor. Hands gripped one corner of the coffin. Strength born from deep resolve, the brothers braced to move the upper portion of the sarcophagus aside. Straining and pushing, sweat rolling down their faces from the exertion, marble grated against marble. A small opening was created, large enough for a child's arm to reach in and pluck out a thigh bone. Held aloft by Rais, the saint's bone looked like any other in the torch's dim light, yellowed by age and browned by dust.
The darkness which was not darkness inhaled sharply. Even Klauss heard the dry rattle and knew it was not in his mind.
"Let's get out of here," Klauss hissed, looking over his shoulder at the walls. Whatever consciousness he thought was listening when they entered, Klauss felt it sharpen now. Eyes tracked their movements like a vulpine predator watching a lamb far away from the herd. Something poised in the air, malicious and waiting to be freed.
"Do you think Mother will be happy when we bring her this? Do you think she'll smile?" Hurried back up the steps and through the door, Rais clutched the thigh bone not from reverence and what it meant to billions, but what it meant for himself and Klauss. With this bone, their future was assured. With this course of action, they were liberated of Isfarena, from the lies of the Ecclesiarchy and the control of the hateful Imperium.
"She'll smile," Klauss replied. Careful to remove the key, he waited for the doors to shut before speaking again. "We need to get back. Just imagine it now, Rais. We get to travel to the stars. We get to see distant planets and suns."
"Will we even see more of those warriors like the one following Mother around? The quiet knight in gold and blue?"
Even after the tumblers locked into place and the cogs fell silent, the feeling of being scrutinized did not abate. If anything, it grew as Klauss and Rais retreated back the way they came. Klauss quickened his pace, sometimes risking a glance over his shoulder as Rais chattered on. The Mother often said daemons lurked in the dark and one day, once the final light in the universe winked out of existence, they would all be set free.
Composed of five great subsectors, the Syntyche sector had been part of the immense Segmentum Obscurus as far back as surviving histories wrote. Syntychia, Japhia, Eliator, Huldah, and Mizar; overflowing with wealth and populated by the Emperor's faithful subjects. Syntyche stood at the edge of the Segmentum; rediscovered after Old Night the people did not resist the call to join the Imperium. Spared the lash and given a caring hand, it blossomed under the harsh watch of its many sector, subsector, and planetary governors. Even after the Horus Heresy, the Syntyche sector was an ideal model of a functional, sane jurisdiction.
How quickly the maggots spread unchecked, worming deep into millennia of rot infested structures. Quietly, ever so quietly, the infestation spread across all of Syntyche to corrupt what it touched. The Great Awakening undid centuries of peace, the sparking cataclysm needed for the Ruinous Powers to rear its many heads. The sector was slowly failing. Lord Inquisitor Saeger registered its death throes from the numerous reports received daily. The cards of the divine Imperial Tarot did not grant him peace. The quelling nausea gripping Saeger made him summon the prophetess to discern an answer.
"Is this necessary?" Interrogator Amara Kith watched as Selina was led into the western chapel by her caretaker. "We have other methods to detect the decay in the sector, my Lord Saeger. The diocese, the information feeds, satellite-"
"Requiring precious time, days and weeks better spent burning the heretics from their burrows. To dally too long will cause them to dig deeper and hide." Surrounded by his coterie, Lord Inquisitor Saeger rubbed a thumb across his aquila brooch. He ignored the curl of the Interrogator's lip. "Selina's methods are effective. She has never been wrong."
The prophetess' white garb contrasted with the black granite of the sunken circle she was led down to. With no gentleness, Selina was shackled inside the rune-inscribed seal of the chapel. The small house of prayer was known to few in the Inquisitor's Palace and with good reason. Saeger kept it for the prophetess' divinitations, allowing his innermost warband to hear what the witch plucked from the future. While others drew close to the diviner, kneeling passively within the circle, Amara kept back. The unchanged visage of the child who accosted her on the Black Ships years ago raised Amara's hackles. She stayed away from the prophetess who crooned to bare walls and rocked her rag doll like a baby.
"Selina," the caretaker, a woman blind in one eye, whispered. "It is time. Let the God-Emperor guide your voice and be your eyes in the void."
Willingly Selina dropped her head, letting her powers take her to visions of what were and what could be. Her eyes became milky pools, the witching sight fully awakened. "The rot is great, Lord Inquisitor. So great," her utterance rose shrilly to the chapel's buttressed ceiling. "You have let it in. It will overrun all of Syntyche. You should not have welcomed it."
Concerned murmurs from the clergy were imminent. Unafraid of the prophetess, Saeger knelt outside the circle on the polished marble floor. "Where is the rot, witch? I demand to know. Where does the taint fester so I may strike it from existence?"
"Tasha says it is here and there." Selina gurgled. "It could be said to grow at Isfarena. The wondrous holy world of Saint Gilles now teems with sinners." Snapping against the iron manacles with a strength not her own, the tiny prophetess rose to her feet giggling. "Oh, mother dearest why do you leave us without our children? Why do you take them from our bosom?"
"Witch, where is the rot bred from at Isfarena? Has it infected the very sanctuary of Gilles?"
"Mother, they want to know! Will you tell Tasha for me?" Selina cocked her head to one side, as though listening to a distant voice. "Yes, yes. Of course, they will know." Soulless orbs seemed to isolate Amara from the crowd. "They lie in their warm beds and next to their hearths with Saint Gilles, but Gilles is worthless and his power stripped from his home. It is no longer his abode."
"The cultists have broken open the reliquary of the saint?" Confessor Dimitri exclaimed in shock. Saint Gilles, protector of Isfarena. Saint Gilles, who banished daemons with a mere touch and closed a Warp gate destroying the planet. Saint Gilles, now desecrated by the same powers he defeated hundreds of year before.
"No, no, no." The prophetess was vexed. Her head lolled. "It was opened with care for the power inside. Bones, chalk white bones, carved up and cast anew. Cast anew as the mother wishes it! All for the children, the wonderful little lambs to slaughter. Isn't it grand, Tasha? They don't see it like we do. Oh no, they never do. The gate will open again, opening wider and wider to let loose the filth!"
Nothing more was said by the diminutive girl. Powers spent from the exhausting séance, Selina was unchained and carefully led away. Given surety by the prophetess's words and where to stem the blood flow of Syntyche, the Lord Inquisitor wasted no time. His fleet was raised as the might of the feared Inquisition turned toward Isfarena. Into the heart of the fray Saeger led the charge.
Now, standing out in the rain before the Grand Cathedral of Saint Gilles, where Chaos maggots perverted its sanctity, the Approbator found she loathed being sent based off the words of a child-witch who never aged a day.
The sacellum was colossal. Its ramparts rose up from churned and muddied earth to pierce the dark heavens. Fortifications crowned by heavy gun batteries, it was less a palace of worship and more a grand fortress. Once inhabited by the pious, its bishop was long dead with sinners treading its halls and a madman for a leader directing their footsteps. As the history of Saint Gilles espoused, his church was built atop the remnants of the Warp gate he courageously sealed. Amara blanched to think if the cultists knew the history or had the means to open the gate again. Stretching out below the great cathedral, the abased hive's buildings crowded close. Tightly pressed, no distinction was made where one dwelling began and another ended. A sea of plascrete and light blue glass offset the drab grey. The sluggish river girdling the eastern battlements was swollen with bodies of cultists and Imperial defenders alike.
Across the river, Amara saw all of this from the platform she and a dozen others occupied. Under her feet, the PDF and the Sisters of Battle mobilized on a hastily cleared parade ground. Fumes from the Rhinos and Immolators choked the heavy air. Further out from the unhallowed church spire, the corpse-filled water emptied out into the bay. Crammed with rusting boats and over laden barges left derelict, the blue-grey of the ocean remained hidden. Beyond were the naval yards, left in a similar state of disrepair and just as silent. Isfarena was truly a world given to the Dark Powers rot.
Amara wondered how Saeger would take the cathedral. Two immediate options came to mind. Sunder the main gate of the cathedral and rip its defences open or raze it to the ground. Knowing Lord Saeger's brutal methodology, Amara believed everything save the foundations would be put to the torch. Her servo-skull quietly clicked an inquiry.
"He'll use fire to smoke them out," she replied absently. "Why else would he bring so many Sisters of Battle?" Amara drew her grey cloak tighter, covering the ebon flexible duty armour she wore. Her high black boots were covered in the inescapable mud of the planet. She frowned at the dirtied gold toecaps. "Those women use fire to cleanse everything. I don't think they can live a day without burning something."
The Order of the Ebon Chalice came in force. Their presence was everywhere in the Lord Inquisitor's camp, black and white armoured women ready to commit themselves body, heart and soul against Chaos. Such fanatical devotion was awe-inspiring. Squads from the Ebon Chalice kept themselves apart from the Planetary Defence Force, whispering hymnals and inspecting their weaponry. Turning her back on the cathedral, Amara made for Saeger's temporary headquarters. Inside the drab olive pavilion, the Interrogator found Saeger's ever-present honour guard at attention while he and Canoness Preceptor Loren discussed stratagem. Having met the Canoness a handful of times previously, Amara stood apart from Loren. Commanding a thousand Sisters, Loren was a hard woman whose concept of mercy ended at the point of a sword. Even the melancholic Confessor Dimitri was better company who, at the moment, was to the left of the Lord Inquisitor.
"An attack on multiple fronts will be used to smite the cultists. To destroy the infection on this planet, we will cut into the roots and expose them to the light." Saeger pointed at key locations on the three dimensional map. Ghostly red lights marked scouted weaknesses of the great church and hive. All Amara saw were the maze of tunnels the heretics used for access to and from the cathedral. "The PDF will attack the main gates of the hive and move up the central road. They will be supported by fully half of the Ebon Chalice's task force, led by the Canoness Preceptor. This will draw the majority of the heretics' strength out to defend the walls."
"What if heavy resistance is encountered?" The query came from a man dwarfed in the presence of the Lord Inquisitor and Canoness Preceptor. Amara glanced at the ostentatious uniform, deducing him to be the PDF commander. "There's no official count to the number of heretics or what weapons and vehicles they might have. While the PDF stands ready to assault the cathedral, Lord Inquisitor, with respect it is better to know what we'll be facing."
"Should you meet resistance, Commander, you will direct your men to drive their tanks over the heretics' bodies and put the purity of the flame to their skins. The God-Emperor will not allow our mighty force to crumble in the liberation of Saint Gilles' resting place." Canoness Preceptor Loren smiled. Her pug-scarred face twisted oddly. An augmetic replaced her right eye, the skin surrounding it disfigured so horrifically no hair grew along that portion of her head.
"Yes, Ma'am," the PDF commander saluted dutifully. "The faith of my men is never in question."
Seeing his acolyte hover at the entry of the command tent, Saeger beckoned her to his side. Amara Kith attended her master, servo-skull hovering at her left shoulder. She quietly waited to see where someone of her aptitude would be placed in this campaign, or at all. Lord Inquisitor Saeger was hesitant to risk Amara Kith since her last field operation. The hololith map rotated, magnifying on the upper tiers of the great structure.
"The second strike, working jointly at the same time as the first, will descend from the skies. I will personally lead them, moving from the top of the church's spire downwards. The Seraphim squads shall provide support. As for the final group, squads of Battle Sisters will infiltrate from below." The warren of tunnels beneath the hive and great church flashed a deep red, an intricate web of veins leading to the heart. "All three parties will converge upon the center of the cathedral. It is there the last cultist will be slain."
"What do we know of the heretics here?" Amara Kith's voice, new to the assembled war conference, drew looks.
"A cult of reasonable power which employs foul sorcery to control the populace," Confessor Dimitri's gruff tone reached all gathered. Bushy grey brows knitted together. "Their worship is centered on a being called 'Dark Mother'. They openly chant the name out loud. The reek of their false god of sorcery is here, apparent in all actions undertaken by the cultists."
Sorcery, the bane of pious men and the mark of nightmares. Amara's gloved hands closed into fists at the mention of the word. The Confessor's diocese, extensive across the Syntyche sector, also doubled as a spy network for Saeger. Dimitri knew the spiritual pulse of the subsectors or once claimed to. To have missed the festering at Isfarena was a personal mark of shame. Following the fleet to this world, Dimitri claimed he would not leave until the last heretic was burnt and their name penned in his codex of damned souls.
Saeger smoothed back his white hair and divulged quietly to Amara and Dimitri, "We have found the rampant corruption in the sector. We shall destroy the cult of the Dark Mother in a single strike. For this, our souls must be stalwart and our views unopposed. Pray for strength from the God-Emperor."
"Take care not to disturb the Warp's currents surrounding you, Euleus." Confessor Dimitri touched his bulbous nose. "Chaos's taint will bring many to their knees this day with its foul devilry polluting the air. I sense it."
"I know the perils of the Warp and how it binds me, Confessor. I need not your reminder to acknowledge what I have spent fighting every waking moment of my life." Saeger's hand rested on the pommel of his force sword absently, reflecting on the power he could channel through the blade. "Amara, you will command one of the Sister squads and take the underground paths. I trust you have learnt since your last independent venture?"
"Unquestionably, Lord Saeger." She gripped the hilt of her sword, allowed to keep the alien-forged blade only by the grace of her master. "Point me in the direction of the errant witches and your will is done."
A consummate leader, Saeger turned again to those gathered. "'Where there be prophecies, they shall fail; where there be tongues, they shall cease; where there shall be knowledge, it shall vanish away.' Today, the mark of Chaos on Isfarena dies. Prepare the faithful. We attack before the next cycle."
Out of the nine, she knew only the Sister Superior's name. That was enough. Not because Amara wanted to, but out of necessity. It was prudent to vox Sister Superior Taryn and have her convey the orders. Amara Kith's long-running habit of not asking names until the mission was complete served her in the past. A name created familiarity. That bred acquaintanceship. In her various missions, such liabilities hampered the goal. After, if anyone survived, then it was safe to know the names and faces under the helms.
"Sister Taryn," one of the battle maiden's voxed. "We should move northward."
"Negative," Taryn shook her head. Like the other Sisters, her helmet covered her face. Her only distinguishing trait was the power sword she carried. "We hold until the Interrogator chooses the path. Milady Kith, have you decided?"
Amara Kith stood at the junction of three tunnels. Her brow furrowed in deep thought as she attempted to deduce the best path forward. The stale air in the passage was cold and smelt of decayed plants, her glass rebreather cycling most of the foullness from her lungs. To her immediate left, the tunnel curled down. Straight ahead, the path hurled into the gloom. Rightmost, the course gently sloped upward. Her squad's departure from headquarters coincided with the beginning of the attacks against the Great Cathedral of Saint Gilles. Hopefully as the enemies rushed into battle above, the way below would be freed of the heretics' presence. With auspex and map, the squad met no challenges.
Until the junction's appearance, an impetuous crossroads not indicated on the map.
A heavy sigh escaped Amara, echoed by her servo-skull that held a lantern to diffuse the shadows. Taking a card tucked inside her glove – a pattern of six swords – she held it for a moment in the light before letting it drop. Fluttering through the air, the card came to rest face up under the lintel of the leftmost tunnel.
"We head left," she indicated the direction with a nod of her head, stooping to pick up the card.
"We entrust our future to the lay of a card, milady? The Emperor's-"
"The Emperor's Will guides us via the card. It chose left, so we go left." An afterthought came to mind as she prepared her bolt pistol. "The air's undoubtedly laced with foul magic. These tunnels are ensorcelled by witches amongst the cult's ranks. That's why the pathways didn't appear on the map. Trust my judgement, Sister Taryn."
Taryn signalled her squad to move. Amara Kith, Sister Superior Taryn and a Battle Sister clenching a flamer led the way. Boltguns racked as the advancing Sisters formed a wedge, the final Sister securing their backs carrying the precious storm bolter. The tunnel's declination increased as the cold settled over the Sororitas and Interrogator.
Tunnel walls switched between ancient brickwork and natural cavern, narrow enough that only two could walk abreast. The jingle of rosary beads against armour, the scuff of footsteps against wet stone, the hiss of the igniter flame were the only sounds in the darkness. It soon became monotonous, placing one foot in front of the other, striding ahead without a challenge. From the comm-bead in her ear, Amara heard some of the warriors muttering litanies. Prayers grew in force when they passed graffiti chalked on the walls, a myriad of curses and profanities against the Emperor. A small thought, dredged from years of harsh training, whispered insistently.
Amara voxed Taryn, "Sister Taryn, how long have we been walking?"
The woman viewed her helm's built-in chrono. "Under two hours, milady."
"It feels longer. It feels like we haven't gone anywhere," Amara remarked. "Ask the others if they have noted anything odd."
The Battle Sister keyed the concerns to the squad. Each replied in clipped tones they felt unaffected, glory to Him on Terra. Amara kept her guard raised and bolt pistol trained forward. The notion of displaced time intensified in her mind, even as the soggy atmosphere of the passageway attested their trek under the river. Embarking over the bridge spanning the river took less time than what they experienced now. A quick consultation of the map drew further suspicion. Perhaps if they continued their advance, the tunnel would empty out ahead. Keep the pace, resist calling a halt. The path will link to others. Trust the map and auspex, blessed machine spirits incapable of lies.
No, the Interrogator thought. This was not right.
Amara mind slipped into an altered state honed through precise training. Five senses withered as another blossomed. Striding ahead of the group, the Sororitas' voices dulled and the servo-skull's light bleached, Amara hesitated a moment before whirling about. She saw through the subtle perception spell to the wielder keeping pace with them. She saw everything with painful clarity, sprinting back through the loosely-formed ranks. Fear in the cultist's eyes, a tremble in his arms holding the staff, the vile symbol incised into his forehead. Amara witnessed all of it, her hand sliding to her sword's hilt to draw the blade, making the silver edge keen through the air in a murderous arc.
Unready for a decapitated head to come flying into vision, one of the less stalwart Sisters let loose a torrent of words. "Emperor's teat! By the Golden Throne, what the fug was that?!"
"Who profaned?" Taryn snarled. "Who took His name in blasphemy?!"
"It was Sister-"
"Silence," Amara Kith overrode the Sister Superior's command. "Mete out your penance later." Nudging the headless body with her foot, she hissed at the dead man and what he represented. Somewhere at the junction he had wormed his way in. The Sisters crowded around the felled enemy, unconsciously keeping a wide berth from the Interrogator.
"Shield yourselves, Sisters," Taryn advised. "We soon confront the enemy. Ave Imperator, avete vos."
The battle maidens moved quickly, Taryn ordering the Sister with the heavy storm bolter to lead. Rising gradually, the passageway led through a series of turns to empty out into new tunnels. No occupants were sighted or bio scans chimed on the auspex. Another corner was reached, and Amara was about to withdraw her inner silence when the lead Sister pulled the trigger of her weapon. Heavy rounds lanced through the air, bolts impacting into stone and cultists alike.
Retribution was unleashed. The Sisters of Battle met their foe. In the cramped underground confines, the cultists' screams of "Mother" gave them strength to charge. Even dying, their rage was terrible to behold against the Sisters pious fury. Crude blades and rebar cudgels failed to stop the battle maidens, protected by blessed power armour. Sister Superior Taryn's power sword severed corrupted limbs from weak bodies, her warriors' guns finding targets in the thick press. It was soon over, bloody mist soaking the air and white mantles of the Ebon Chalice.
"So now we come to it," one of the Ebon Chalice uttered. "From here forward, we tread on the backs of the dead."
A grim portent; two Battle Sisters died in the next clash. Amara Kith knew the squad had successfully crossed under the river and reached the hive's tunnels by two markers. The foremost being the stonework hallway ended at a heavy plasteel door, closed and electromagnetically locked. The second and more obvious were the heretics guarding the portcullis. Lasfire and bolter rounds chewed up the thick stone while cultists shouted the alarm. Amara's servo-skull nearly became a mess of gears and electronics if it hadn't reversed its anti-gravity drive. It dove around the corner the Imperial force now sheltered behind, taking its light with it.
"Burn their filth from existence," Taryn barked to the flamer-wielding Sister.
Amara blanched as the torrent of flames washed down the corridor. The lick of the intense heat and stone walls reminded her of a distant cell that nearly became her tomb. Promethium flame bathed the corridor, clearing the way for the Emperor's servants. Falling back, the first Sister let the others give covering fire. As the flames flickered amid the cultists front ranks, the second wave stepped forward over the dead. Fearless, their faith shielding them against the corrupted mortals, the Order of the Ebon Chalice brought death to the tainted.
Sister Superior Taryn charged, black armour reflecting the fire's light as her blade hacked apart the traitors. Cleaving the loose ranks, Taryn stabbed into the chest of a man, pivoting on the ball of her foot to twist the sword free. She marked the next heretic, a woman sprouting feathers along her arms, sword already beginning its death arc. In every round expended and motion used, the Sisters of the Ebon Chalice exploited the openings in the Chaos ranks. Swarming like ants, the desperate cultists used strength of numbers where their battle training lacked. One Sister, pulled to the ground by the frenzied mortals, shrieked in anger as her helmet was ripped off. A succession of lasbolts found her exposed face.
A flash of deadly light singed Taryn's helm. Whirling about, the Sister Superior crashed an armoured fist into the face of the brazen cultist who attacked her. Retaliation came quick. An invisible force hefted the Sister of Battle to throw her against the far wall. The back of her head cracked against the stone; Taryn slumped to the scorched ground stunned, her sword falling from nerveless fingers.
"Witches in their ranks," the Sister bearing the flamer yelled, loosing another wave of flames.
Amara sought out the impertinent psyker with her un-sight. Hiding to the rear and close to the portcullis, the witch's face betrayed fear at his discovery. The Interrogator shoved past the Sisters, only seeing the glowing eyes of the psyker. He reacted violently, striving to maintain the distance between himself and Amara. Chained lightning tore the air. It found its mark in the back of a Battle Sister, but in the precious seconds of surprise, Amara Kith made the killing blow. In her null sphere the man knew terror when his magic failed him. One bolt round split the psyker's head open. The corpse capered a moment longer before dropping to the bloodied floor.
It was over. A Sister strode over the charred bodies, administering death to unlucky survivors. Another knelt by Taryn who, having taken off her helmet, let her wound be inspected.
Amara handed the power sword back to Taryn. "Combat like this must be nothing new to you."
"I will live through the day," she replied through blood stained teeth. "The same cannot be said for Sisters Corrine and Emma."
"We'll return for the bodies after Lord Saeger had won the day," Amara reassured her. A nameless Sister moved the bodies of the battle maidens from the pile of heretics, reverently folding their hands over their chests in the sign of the aquila. "Their bravery and sacrifice won't be forgotten."
Rising without help, Taryn pushed past Amara, hollering for the Sisters to rally. The Interrogator knew Taryn's display of contempt stemmed from losing two warriors. That, and being in the shadow of Amara's silence. Refusing to withdraw her null ability, Amara knew the effects would worsen the attitudes of those around her. She could not order them as an ordained Inquisitor would; the leverage given for this mission by Lord Saeger was minimal.
Let this be done with quickly, she thought, waving her servo-skull close. The plasteel door was unlocked and the way forward unhindered. Seven Sisters and Amara Kith continued into the belly of the beast, into the earth warrens undercutting the hive.
The route took them across an ancient causeway, its width great enough for fifty men marching shoulder to shoulder. Perhaps once, in the days when Saint Gilles walked Isfarena, it knew the constant tread of feet and the warm rays of the sun. Centuries' of the hive accruing over the ferrocrete cast it in shadows and dust, leaving it forgotten as men took other paths. Towering statues lined the causeway, pollution and grime shrouding their forms, covering the deep recess of their faces. Unseeing eyes watched a bloodied squad and servo-skull proceed over the great road.
Far, far overhead where the infinite darkness eclipsed the ceiling, the earth shook. Clods of loose dirt and boulders, some the size of a Rhino's chassis, plummeted to crack against the causeway. Rarer, but just as deadly, older sections of the hive fell. All winced at the ricocheting echo of dislodged boulders hurtling down in the dark. The heavy ordnance of the PDF and Canoness Preceptor was underway, unaware of the threats to the subterranean squads. Stress fractures, great cracks threading the primeval causeway, made the group wary. Amara Kith increased their stride and prayed for safety.
Her prayers did not reach the Emperor.
Cultists sent to bolster the portcullis appeared from the gloom. With no finesse and nerves taut, the Sisters created a bloody stitch of bolter fire across the heretical ranks. Brief, sporadic light from the bolters revealed a deluge of rocks and metal careening downwards. The Sisters and cultists broke and ran as the boulders collided against the ferrocrete and statues. Sheered slabs of the effigies smashed on the grand avenue, plunging them into the chasm beneath. Grit choked the air, obscuring the light of torches and helm displays. Those possessing the Emperor's divine blessing or the Dark Powers faith escaped; others were crushed. Amid the confusion, the Sisters of Battle continued felling their enemies. When the dust settled, a head count was made. No cultists survived, but another three Sisters were lost. Amara Kith saw the outstretched arm of one Sororitas, the rest of the body ground to paste under the weight of a massive boulder.
"Blood on the Throne," profanity from the Sister beforehand echoed on the vox. "Why does the God-Emperor test our numbers so? How is it valiant to die in this manner?"
"Sister Miria held the storm bolter," another noted. Unease laced her voice. "It has been lost to the abyss."
The causeway shivered. The trembling intensified, building to a cataclysmic end with the ferrocrete bridge crumbling. Amara shouted for them to run in a hoarse voice, blood pounding with adrenaline singing through her veins. Soon the whole highway was quaking, careening from side to side as it fell to oblivion, pulling the great statues down with its death throes. Stumbling like drunks, the ground jumping beneath them, Amara Kith and the Sororitas dashed through the destruction. Behind them came death. Ahead, salvation emerged in the form of stairs. Amara pushed on, the remaining Sisters following.
Energy born from desperation as the underground world collapsed, the group threw themselves through a doorway under the baleful gaze of the Imperial aquila. The quake swallowed the once great causeway, leaving the survivors covered in dust and the breath taken from their lungs, but alive. In the lee of the portal that led into the lowest recesses of the cathedral, the weakened squad sheltered. Bruised, damaged, their strength cleaved in half, nonetheless the Emperor watched over them. Amara removed her rebreather, tossing it into the murky ravine.
"Close ranks," Taryn hoarsely ordered. She leaned heavily against her power sword, hands clasped around the hilt and head bowed as though in prayer. "Emperor be praised on sanctified Terra, we have reached the cathedral, Sisters. Should we find your master at the end of this madness, your report will speak highly of the courage my Battle Sisters displayed this day. I will note your leadership abilities down this hellish path were governed by a card, Interrogator Amara Kith."
Leaning against the far wall, Amara did not care enough to order Taryn to silence. A visible tremor shook her body, an over-taxed system ready to rebel. Amara was blatantly pressing her ability to its limit when a saner mind would have relinquished it. Nausea swept over her and she waited for the reaction to pass. She controlled this. She was always in control. Inhaling a deep breath, the Inquisitor-to-be watched dust motes float in the air.
"Of course, Sister Taryn. If luck sees us through the remainder of this day."
"Luck does not exist," the Sister holding the flamer replied. "The Divine Emperor guides us in our just mission."
Her voice carried the emphatic note of the true believer. Nothing less was expected from the Emperor's brides. Holding her tongue, Amara Kith concentrated on aligning her physical and mental planes once more. Faltering now meant defeat. Amid the shaking of the grand cathedral's foundations, Amara scanned the secure channels in the hopes of raising Lord Saeger. Static hissed and popped. Truly, her squad was on its own until they linked up with others. If any were fortunate enough to have survived the tunnels.
Amara brought out the auspex and map. The machine spirits refused to respond, their cores either damaged from the fighting or hindered by Warp magic. And the four could sense it, the air weighed down by its almost corporeal existence. To the Interrogator the sensation was akin to bugs crawling over her skin, seeking a way to sully her. Shaking it off, Amara maintained the lead as the unit followed.
In dark halls lit by torches, they hunted for the heart of the cult. A quick pace down corridors of marble and bronze gilt was set, broken when confronted by heretics foolish or mad with the hopes of ambushing them. Charred and hacked bodies marked the Imperium's passing. Sister Superior Taryn moved forward resolutely, her power sword drawn and boltgun ready. Doors splintered, chambers were investigated, the renegades of the God-Emperor killed without mercy. Amara knelt over the toy chest in one room, pondering where the younglings were as the adults died. The youngest cultist she had slain hadn't been older than fifteen, too old for rag dolls and wooden blocks. Like everything else, it would have to wait.
'All paths lead to Saint Gilles' went a famous Isfarena saying. Words never rang truer when the passageway Amara blindly took emptied out unexpectedly into an underground chapel. It was one of many in the great design of the cathedral, a pocket of desecrated faith by the followers of Chaos. Unexceptional at any other time save now. The heretical sight at the center nearly broke the resolve of the squad.
Four aisles led to the central nave where a bright light flooded the esoteric chapel. The light emanated from a pillar of cold white flame, its flames touching but not burning the domed ceiling. Slabs of stone, taken from a world far from the Emperor's light, were etched with arcane and foul symbols. They floated a hand's breadth above the ground to form the boundary of the ceremony. Enclosed in the middle of the dark rite was the stolen bone of Saint Gilles. Wisps of blue-white flame coiled up from the bone to form the beginning of a Warp gate. It was barely there, a sliver of sickening light flickering against the white flame, but its creation marked what horrors could follow if not closed.
Selina's predictions rang true. The bone of the saint was carved and cast anew, drawing forth powers its maker once sought to subvert. Standing alongside the unholy pillar of flame to direct the careful birthing, the cult leader turned, regarding the new arrivals in the chamber. Amara Kith expected a twisted being. A foul mutant, an aberration against the Imperial Creed; what she saw was worse. Aside from the extravagant Byzantine robes worn he was utterly normal in appearance. He could have been anyone. Leeching power from the once sacred relic of Saint Gilles, the man's eyes briefly flared.
"Fate brought you here." He addressed them with discomforting familiarity.
Sister Superior Taryn stepped into the light of the daemonic flame. "The Will of the Emperor guided us to end your foul existence. Your desecration of the saint is a profanation of the greatest accord, a deviation from the Emperor's justice. Cease your witchery and you may yet be granted a swift death."
He shook his head. "Misguided women. The cowl has been pulled over your eyes. You willingly remain naïve to the workings of the galaxy. No more, not here. Coincidence, as I've been instructed, is non-existent. Everything is foreordained."
"Just as the cleansing of Isfarena's unfaithful will be. Your forces are routed, strength depleted." Amara's statement was punctuated by the colossal base of the church shivering. The pitched battle continued far away, life and death decided by the strength of those in combat. Swept up in cold flames, the graven bone linking the Materium and Immaterium bobbed on aetheric currents.
The cult magus chuckled. In one hand he held a children's storybook, in the other a force staff. "She took them. As promised she took all of them to safety and left us here to fend for ourselves. A last stand of fathers and mothers desperate for a miracle. But it worked and our children are free. You," he spat the word venomously. "Your kind won't make it out of here alive."
Amara pointed to the flame-wielding Sister of Battle. "With me. Sister Taryn, hold the enemy at bay with whatever means necessary. I will deal with the cult mage and close the portal." Before Taryn could argue against the order, Amara was running down a row of pews to the right, taking another aisle up to the central nave. She drew her sword, her servo-skull flying at shoulder level as the Sister of Battle protected their backs.
The magus raised his arm, tendrils of dark magic seeping from the rent at his command. In swirling currents it flowed from the pedestal and up his body to the staff. Voice cracking like rocks, he uttered disgusting syllables, guiding the energies toward an ominous purpose. One of the Sister's cursed against the mage. Closing the distance to the warlock, Amara's skin crawled as her un-sight warded against the unleashed magic.
With the corrupt energy, the magus brought something across the rift. It detached itself from the gloom, slithering across shadows and pools of light, swimming toward the trio of Sisters standing back to back. When it struck, bursting from the ground in a savage dance of claws and bladed limbs, its speed could barely be tracked. Its form was one of constant motion, never the same shape for too long. One thrust from its talons, it punched through the armour of a Sister. Lifting her off her feet, the featureless monstrosity barked a laugh as she screamed the Litany of Hate. Before a single round could be unleashed, the spawn grasped her upper torso in a slithering tentacle and ripped her in two.
Amara reached the pedestal as the screams tore the air. Leaping up the steps, the rite's barrier halted their advance. Their attentions turned to one of the boundary stones. Unclipping a krak grenade, the Sister primed it and threw. It detonated against a stone, cracking the repulsive wards. Amara followed by emptying the magazine of her bolt pistol into the fissure, splitting it further. The magus backed away as the barrier dissolved, leaving him open to the fury of the Interrogator and Sister of the Ebon Chalice. Her sword slashed the air ahead of her; Amara pushed the cult leader back until he was pressed against one of the boundary stones.
He threw the book to buy moments, to draw more power from the opening gateway. Batting aside the tome, Amara came within the man's psychic radius. His eyes bulged at the touch of silence. Clashing against the psychic bubble, Amara's vision wavered. Her nausea returned, threatening to sever her shaky concentration. Swallowing her rising gorge, the Interrogator pressed on, throwing all her strength behind her blade.
In the chapel's aisle, the abomination dropped the floundering corpse of the second Battle Sister. Its rasping voice shrieked in joy at the bloodshed, rebounding off the walls and echoing in Taryn's ears. Her faith sustained her in the face of the Chaos entity. Whispering a hymnal to the God-Emperor and Saint Alicia Dominica, Sister Superior Taryn rushed the chaotic spawn. The disruptor field of her power sword drew first blood. She chopped off a tentacle, the limb dissipating in shadows when it hit the violated ground. Her second blow severed a talon. Charged by righteous fury, Taryn pressed the attack, foreseeing the monster retreating against her sword.
There was only one witness to Sister Taryn's death.
Instead of recoiling, it charged. Taryn twisted aside, ducking under its sweeping grip. Her actions were useless. Wrapping its arms and writhing coils around the Sister of Battle, the monster began to crush its opponent. Taryn screamed defiantly. Her armour buckling under the strain, servos whining, the Sister Superior acted in the knowledge that she would not escape. Reversing her sword, Taryn plunged it through her and into the foul being. Before it crushed her, Sister Superior Taryn wrenched the blade free, throwing it toward the last Sister of the Ebon Chalice.
Screaming in desperate anger, the final battle maiden ran at the Chaos devil. Expending the remaining fuel in her weapon, she hurled it into the press of shadows. Grasping the power sword, she charged into the darkness with the confidence of victory or defeat. There was no middle ground. Weakened by the blow the Sister Superior gave in death, burning in flames, the summoned beast dropped under the enraged assault. Shouting the Litany of Triumph, the Sister of Battle's sword arm pierced the Warp beast's heart, cutting its life from the Materium.
Sensing his ally's death, the cult leader bared his teeth and snarled. Locked in combat against the Interrogator, his force staff blocking her sword, the man wrestled for the upper hand. The pedestal and boundary rocks quivered as heavy ordnance rocked the grand cathedral again. Feinting back as the ground shifted, the warlock lashed out and punched Amara. The blow crashed against her left cheek, bringing with it throbbing pain and the taste of blood.
"The Dark Mother ordained this. That's why she took the children to safety." The man edged back while Amara reeled from his strike. Closer to the thigh bone, closer to the opening Warp gate.
Amara spat. "Who is the Dark Mother?"
No response came. Lunging at the cult leader, Amara sought to keep him from the relic. She dropped her sword and with both hands grabbed his force staff. Using it as leverage, Amara Kith drew herself up against the magus. He screamed as the acolyte's nullility bled the life from him.
"I know my little Klauss and Rais will never be seen again," he whispered from blackening lips. "I'm at peace with that. You, you damned bitch, will go with me. I'll kill you as your kind took my wife."
With his remaining strength, the heretic attempted to throw both himself and Amara into the widening gateway. Amara howled to the Sister of Battle, "Destroy the relic! Destroy it now!" She fought against the man, her muscles cramping and skin crawling against his existence. The Battle Sister raced for the pedestal.
Jumping onto the platform she shrieked, "In the name of the God-Emperor let my strength be true!" The power sword came down. By the blade's disruptor field or the divine power the Sister's faith channelled, she struck true.
The thigh bone of Saint Gilles sundered.
With nothing to control it, the Warp gate began to unravel. An explosion ripped through the basements of the cathedral. The floating stones collapsed in a thunderous avalanche. Directionless energies folded on itself, mutating the rift in to a vortex. On the other side, high-pitched screams and gaping moans issued their defeat. The pull of the closing gate was tremendous. Amara pushed away from the magus, hands scrabbling to grip the base of the pedestal to find purchase on the nave's stonework. Laughing madly, the leader of the heretical cult let himself to be pulled into the maw and oblivion. Across the squad's vox-channel a desperate prayer repeated.
"Emperor protects- He on Terra protects his handmaidens-"
The vortex imploded, washing the underground chapel in poisonous light. Amara felt herself hurtled violently through the air and into the pews. Her grip on her un-sight was released, the strain against her body finished. Deep, profound silence replaced the former cacophony of daemonic wails. Time trickled on, its meaning lost as Amara remained unconscious. In the air, traces of the Warp gate flickered.
A pungent odor, burnt ozone, brought Amara back to the present. Hacking the dust from her parched throat, the gloomy world swam into focus, shrouded in red. A light pierced the dark to rest on Amara. It was followed by a quiet click as her servo-skull registered her vital signs. Flanking the diminutive machine-spirit was the lone Sister of Battle. She held the hilt of the broken power sword, her empty flamer slung over her shoulder. Removing her helmet, the Sister's black hair framed a concerned face. A scar ran up the left side of her mouth, turned upward in a smile.
"Milady, it is good to see you are alive. Have you been wounded?" With her free hand she helped the Interrogator to her feet.
"You're the one who swore over the vox-link, am I right?" Amara winced as she was pulled upright. A rib was bruised, maybe even broken. Providence was still on her side. Her servo-skull, eternally devoted, shone its light to where Amara's sword was. Jutting out from a pile of rubble, the haft of the weapon was reassuring in her hand. Pulling it free, Amara wiped the blade and sheathed it.
"Yes, milady."
"What's your name?"
"Sister Ursula of the Order of the Ebon Chalice. Though I fear for not much longer as I've destroyed the relic of the blessed Saint Gilles."
Amara Kith smiled, wincing. "Sister Ursula, have no worries. Let's ascend and find our allies. I promise, with whatever power and influence I have, I will ensure your protection."